Dan Hodges is a former Labour Party and GMB trade union official, and has managed numerous independent political campaigns. He writes about Labour with tribal loyalty and without reservation. You can read Dan's recent work here

George Entwistle, the BBC and Jimmy Savile: the insanity continues

George Entwistle, the BBC's Director General, has appeared in front of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.

The CMS Select Committee is, apparently, now the appropriate parliamentary forum for investigating allegations of serious sexual abuse against children. Not that the children got much of a look in. Once again, it was what BBC managers, reporters and producers had or hadn’t done to investigate the allegations of child abuse that dominated proceedings.

Actually that’s wrong. The bulk of the questioning didn’t relate to what they’d done to prevent the abuse. It was primarily focused on why they hadn’t broadcast a TV programme into the alleged abuse.

The committee's main thrust was twofold. First, why hadn’t senior BBC executives conducted a comprehensive review into the Savile allegations and the decision to axe a Newsnight program into those allegations. Second, why were senior BBC executives hiding behind their recently commissioned comprehensive review into the allegations, and not answering the MPs' questions.

George Entwistle may be up to his neck in this scandal and his attempts to answer the MPs' questions were nervous and faltering. But to be honest, who can blame him? He’s damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t. On the one hand we’ve got Ed Miliband and others demanding an independent inquiry into Savile. On the other we have MPs demanding to know why BBC executives haven’t already conducted their own investigation, found all the answers and shared their findings with Parliament.

It’s hard to sum up the full stupefying lunacy of the proceedings. Why had the BBC rushed out an inaccurate statement on the Newsnight allegations, Entwistle was asked by one committee member. Why had they taken so long to put out an accurate statement on the Newsnight allegations, he was asked by another.

Hadn’t Entwistle put undue pressure on a BBC producer by asking them to ensure any allegations regarding Savile were dealt with in precisely the same way as he was alive, he was asked by one MP. Why hadn’t he intervened more directly in the debate over the broadcast, he was asked by their colleague.

And so it went on. In one breath BBC managers were guilty of compromising the editorial integrity of their output. In another they were guilty of not exercising enough managerial control over their output.

The craziest moment of all came when the committee began asking questions about the previous night’s Panorama, which had focused on the spiking of the infamous Newsnight broadcast. Why had a particular email not been included in the program, one MP demanded to know. Why hadn’t tougher questions been asked inquired another. Parliament was now chasing the cover up of the cover up of the cover up of the cover up.

The whole thing was a grotesque, self-indulgent farce. Meanwhile the police continue the painstaking work of trying to bring what they fear is one of Britain’s most prolific paedophile rings to justice. Let’s hope they do a better job than the House of Commons did today.